My experience with Lampizator
- Thread starter MadFloyd
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Totally agree, Ked. Here's what I keep asking myself: "What would McIntosh do?" McIntosh developed the best customer service program and brand loyalty in all of audio for over 40 years for good reason. They gave "bench" seminars around the country for many years in the 70's and 80's and fixed any piece of McIntosh gear that was fixable on the spot, at no charge. They weren't the only ones. Once, I was stupid enough to blow a Krell amp by shorting the outputs inadvertently. Krell fixed that at no charge! If I were a new manufacturer, I would surely have gone the extra McIntosh mile to make Ian happy. These are the things that build real brand loyalty.
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Plenty of Lampi plugs going on here and over on AudioShark. The net is great for free advertising and for creating brand awareness.
Advertising is free when customers are delighted with the product. Unfortunately one wrong experience can work against that. You are seeing both cases here.
Gopher,
When you talk to him, please consider changing the trial policy to a longer time period. 30 days would be great.
If someone returns your dac after 7 days or after a longer period, it's still an open box, and you guys have to deal with either way.
Good luck getting this resolved
When I am out at the jazz and blues bars listening to live music, Patron for $8-$10 per shot is the best choice. Anything cheaper is just shiet. For my bar at home, I like anything Anejo that's $50-100 for 750ml bottle. I am a snob, but not too picky, as long as it is smooth. I think I am going to pick up a bottle of the Costco-branded tequila this weekend, just to give it a try.
Coming back on topic, Geardaddy, what has been your dac evolution? Did you go straight to the top Golden Gate Lampi, or did you have other Lampi gear, as well as other DACs?
P.S. I also wanted to thank you for the most interesting Stereophile link in my "most musical dac" thread.
In my opinion, you have done nothing wrong. You do not have any integrity problem. Good luck on resolving the issue.
Agree. There is no integrity problem. Just an entrepreneurial company trying to deal with unforeseen events.
From a manufacturer's/distributors standpoint I can see how tire kicker demo's can be frustrating and quite frankly not worth the trouble...after all Ian was never going to seriously consider a tube DAC in the first place (his words).
This is one of the longest threads I have ever read from a dissatisfied customer and friends that want to pressure the manufacturer or distributor to take the full financial burden for returning a product on June 29, 16 days after the customer confirmed that it was working on June 13. Comparing the return policy of Lampizator to other manufactures that sell through dealers with a 50% markup or who have locally based manufacturing is to ignore so many issues.
A 30 day trial period would be ideal with a 20% restocking fee for all future sales. So perhaps the distributor might consider just charging the customer a portion of the restocking fee after the first free 7 days from June 13 to June 20. Thus this customer could either keep the product, sell the product or return the product with a 10.6% restocking fee if they return it today or a 20% restocking fee if they return it on July 20.
This customer would seem to be in a very small minority of buyers who are dissatisfied with the Lampi DAC so I doubt that the manufacturer or distributor will be affected. To believe that there was, is or ever will be an audio product that satisfies all buyers regardless of finances is fanciful fantasy, but I believe that Lampizator's reputation remains pretty strong.
IMO this thread is a perfect case study for students in business schools. Almost all points of view were presented.
I believe the final conclusion depends on a standpoint, be it customer or manufacurer/dealer.
One thing nobody mentioned is that Lampizator as company is in very fast transition from DIY sector to serious business operation.
If you compare the lampi from 2-3 ago with today's big 7 and GG DACs, there is a real improvement in quality, still not the level of most prestigious hiend brands but with very good P/SQ ratio.
I am sure when Lukasz is back form holidays he will find a solution Ian could accept because he always was very friendly with customers. Now the question is if he can maintain this communication culture when company is growing , organization and HR policy will be crucial.
On the other hand the misunderstanding which arose between a customer and a dealer in a specific country should be dealt by the dealer , this is why the company builds distribution network and do not sale direct ex factory.
I do not see any reason to blame producer for the situation apart from being responsible for organization culture he establish in his network. My only doubt is if the customer when making decision about the audition at home had a good will to keep the unit or just wanted to have opinion about a fancy DAC. On the other hand the dealer should be not so strict about a number of days of the trial period when the expensive product is concerned. Finally, customer is always right and the dealer should bear it in mind.
I believe the final conclusion depends on a standpoint, be it customer or manufacurer/dealer.
One thing nobody mentioned is that Lampizator as company is in very fast transition from DIY sector to serious business operation.
If you compare the lampi from 2-3 ago with today's big 7 and GG DACs, there is a real improvement in quality, still not the level of most prestigious hiend brands but with very good P/SQ ratio.
I am sure when Lukasz is back form holidays he will find a solution Ian could accept because he always was very friendly with customers. Now the question is if he can maintain this communication culture when company is growing , organization and HR policy will be crucial.
On the other hand the misunderstanding which arose between a customer and a dealer in a specific country should be dealt by the dealer , this is why the company builds distribution network and do not sale direct ex factory.
I do not see any reason to blame producer for the situation apart from being responsible for organization culture he establish in his network. My only doubt is if the customer when making decision about the audition at home had a good will to keep the unit or just wanted to have opinion about a fancy DAC. On the other hand the dealer should be not so strict about a number of days of the trial period when the expensive product is concerned. Finally, customer is always right and the dealer should bear it in mind.
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I agree. 30 days should be the standard. Why? Because how can you judge a unit that is not fully broken in? When I had the Berkeley DAC to try out from Goodwin's for a long weekend, it had been fully broken in. So I just had to plug it in Friday evening and wait until Saturday morning, while letting it spin, to be good to go for serious auditioning over 3 days until Tuesday morning. The unit was at full performance all the time.
Also, with a tubed product a longer period should be granted in order to allow for tube swapping. Especially when diffferent tubes have such dramatic effects on the sound as with the Lampi.
If the PCM DAC of the Lampi Big7 needs 400 hours break-in time, as some have asserted, how can you judge within 7 days? Impossible. Even with a 30-day period, Lukasz should do some factory burn-in.
Of course Ian was serious about the DAC. Why else would he have spent all the money on tubes to make it work for his tastes?
If he had paid attention and taken to heart advice given by people with long rolling experience here, he would not have ended up with the lowly rated tubes he admittedly didnt love. There are TONs of rolling experience forums/site that I and others directed him to.
Slow road to bankruptcy and we could lose a brand that is well regarded as many for the SQ we seek.
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